VisionFund International’s Women’s Empowerment Fund

-Funding enables VisionFund to impact over 32,000 women

LONDON – 2 April 2019 – Ahead of International Women’s Day on 8 March, VisionFund
International (VisionFund), the microfinance arm of children’s charity World
Vision, pledged over $1.2 million[1]
in funding to support over 32,000 women
in 2019 in Armenia, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Uganda, and Vietnam from its Women’s
Empowerment Fund, a fund established to empower women’s ability to improve
their livelihoods and benefit their children. The fund complements VisionFund’s
existing microfinance programmes in the five countries by providing extra
resources for business training and loans.

Thin Thin Mar from Myanmar was a beneficiary of the Women’s Empowerment
Fund in 2017 and 2018. She lives with her husband, their two children and three
nieces and nephews. She and her husband have land where they grow flowers.
Struggling to make enough money to look after her family, Thin Thin took out a
loan of US$400 that she used to purchase fertiliser, insecticide and flower
seedlings which enabled her flower business to bloom and her family’s lives to
dramatically improve. Buoyed by her success, Thin Thin plans to build a new
house that will provide better shelter, to drill a well for clean water and to purchase
a generator to provide electricity.

Johanna Ryan, Global Director of Impact, VisionFund International
explained, “In VisionFund’s fifteenth anniversary year, we look back over the
years and celebrate the achievements of women like Thin Thin who have worked
hard to grow their business and raise their family’s living standards. I was
struck most recently in Myanmar by the benefits to both women and children
gained by loans provided through the Women’s Empowerment Fund. Women spoke of
their increased confidence, and the pride they took in being able to afford
their children’s education, not just high school but even university
education.

“With support from the Women’s Empowerment Fund we are committed to
bringing this kind of economic development to many vulnerable women and their
children, to helping them develop a greater understanding of how to use
financial services to increase their incomes and resilience, and to ensure they
have access to products and services specifically developed to fulfil their
needs.”

Armenia

With funding from the Women’s Empowerment Fund, VisionFund will provide
services to women who are based in the poorest communities, in isolated rural
areas, near to the border or in armed conflict areas and in villages with severe
climatic conditions where temperatures fall as low as -33ᴏC in Winter and as high as +45ᴏC in Summer. Loans will be made to these women to help them to increase
their income capacity to improve their family’s health, housing conditions, and
nutrition and to make the best choices for their families.

VisionFund will also seek to deliver services to selected groups of
Armenian women through smartphones equipped with training materials. This will
help the women to learn about managing their finances and save them time and
expense associated with travelling in to branches for savings and repayments.

Anticipated number of women to be impacted:

13,840

Anticipated number of children to benefit from their parents/guardians
access to VisionFund’s financial services:

12,450

Myanmar

Funding from the Women’s Empowerment Fund will help VisionFund to
support rural women with basic business education and the provision of loans
and savings products.

Anticipated number of women to be impacted

1,600

Anticipated number of children to benefit from their parent’s/guardian’s
access to VisionFund’s financial services

3,060

Sri Lanka

Similar to the focus in Myanmar, VisionFund will provide basic business
education, loans and savings products. Women targeted by the Women’s
Empowerment Fund in Sri Lanka will be rural women who are often war affected
women, disabled or widowed.

Anticipated number of women to be impacted

500

Anticipated number of children to benefit from their parent’s/guardian’s
access to VisionFund’s financial services

1,000

Uganda

In Uganda, the Women’s Empowerment Fund will enable VisionFund Uganda to
bring financial inclusion to refugee women living in camps by providing them
with financial literacy training and providing small loans through savings
groups run by World Vision.

Anticipated number of women to be impacted

4,000

Anticipated number of children to benefit from their parent’s/guardian’s
access to VisionFund’s financial services

12,480

Vietnam

Anticipated number of women to be impacted

12,090

Anticipated number of children to benefit from their parent’s/guardian’s
access to VisionFund’s financial services

15,475

The Women’s Empowerment Fund was launched in November 2016 as a bold initiative
to contribute to VisionFund International’s target of empowering two million
women and impacting six million children annually by 2021. The Fund aims to
build the resilience of women and their families, improve gender equity and
support the development of women’s livelihoods by expanding financial access
for women and delivering quality credit, savings and insurance products
developed by VisionFund with women - especially mothers - in mind.

-ENDS-

ABOUT VISIONFUND INTERNATIONAL

VisionFund International, World Vision’s microfinance arm, has been improving
the lives of children in the developing world for 15 years. By offering small
loans and other financial services, clients develop successful businesses,
enabling their children to grow up healthy and educated. In 2017, VisionFund International’s
network of microfinance institutions provided loans to 1.23 million clients,
with nearly three-quarters of these going to women and over a third to clients
actively involved in farming. Repayment rates were 97.4%. Also in 2017, over
4.4 million children were positively impacted through its MFI network located
across 30 countries in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America.